SB 1148 Could Destroy Your Family

Chassidie Russell’s story is a story of heartbreak and debt. It’s a story of lawsuit abuse. It’s a story of a mother and her daughter being ripped apart.

And it could be your story.

Tomorrow at 1:30pm, Senate Bill 1148 will be brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill would allow in-laws to force fit parents into financially devastating legal battles. Yes, battles just as painful as the one Chassidie survived…

Fight for your family before it’s too late! Call the committee members below to tell them that you stand against SB 1148 (to inform yourself of the details of this bill, read Tim Lambert’s blog article).

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About Tim Lambert

Tim Lambert, president of Texas Home School Coalition (the state home school support organization since 1986), has been involved in home school leadership in Texas since 1984. He and his wife Lyndsay taught their four now-grown children at home for 16 years, graduating the last two in 2000. As the head of the organization for the leading home school state in the country, Tim is recognized as an authority on home education issues in Texas. In this capacity, he has testified before numerous Texas legislative committees on issues related to home schooling. He often deals with state government agencies, including the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, on home education issues and has served as an expert witness on home education in a number of court cases. He has also addressed such conferences as the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers on the topic.

Tim holds a B.A. in political science from Texas Tech University and is active in the political arena, having served eight years as Republican National Committeeman for Texas. He is committed to serving the home schooling community and to protecting parents’ right to choose the method of education of their children.

Comments

I called ALL the committee members above to tell them I stand AGAINST SB 1148. I got through to each office on the first try and would encourage others to call as well. I also let Senators Campbell and Paxton know I appreciated their stand AGAINST this Bill and asked that they would CONTINUE to stand against it. All this took LESS than 10 minutes of my time. Now I will be calling on the Lord for His help as well. Christian voters should not be silent.

I am against SB 1148!
It is one thing for grandparents to sue for visitation rights, but this bill goes too far.
A judge should not have the right to take a child from a parent without absolute proof the she/he is unfit!
It is particularly unfair for low-income parents to have to bear the financial burden to protect their parental rights.
Parental rights are for all parents, not just those who have financial means.

SB 1148 must be stopped! The Senators that authored and support this bill are the same people that state they are looking after their low income constituents! This bill proves they are not! Without the financial means, a vendictive grand parent (or anyone) can just take our children. In most cases, this will impact a single mother! Thanks Senator West! It’s not enough that child support orders are not enforced, without the financial means to hire an attorney to do so, but let’s go ahead and take the women’s children too!

Mrs. Finch, I pray SB 1148 never passes, and I do feel for you. But you need to work with your child’s spouse. Talk to them and work with them. Follow their desires in how to raise THEIR child. As the parent, they do have the right to make parenting decisions for their child. And just because you would like to see your grandchild on any particular day does not constitute abuse. If that parent is not neglecting, abusing or otherwise harming their child, then they have every right to say with whom and when that child will associates. I sincerely hope you are not one of the grandparents that want to control the everyday life of your grandchild’s family. This is what happened to us. If SB1148 passes, it would be devastating to more families. We currently have over $125,000 of debt to attorneys. I could purchase newer safer vehicles to transport my children, I could buy another house. I could do lots of things for my family with that kind of money. But grandparents who disagreed with us on who and when someone could see our child, had that child removed from her home, to not be able to be with her then 10month old brother, me (her stepfather), and Chassidie (her mother). She was taken in January, we had two 1 hour visits in a counseling office in March, and Chasside had one other 4 hour visit for mother’s day that year. Oh by the way – the “grandparents” fought to prevent even those visits. You cannot know the harm that these laws cause. Please work with your grandchild’s parent.

No I do not want to take them away from her I would just like to visit with them. Even if it was once a month. I kept those two babies they spent the night with us they were apart of our life. No I am For SB1148. I want to see my Grandbabies. No you can not get alone with her.

All of us would like to have things that we do not have. Want, per se, is frequently not relevant — otherwise, everyone reading this thread would be perfectly justified in banding together and paying a visit to Warren Buffett to get him to hand over some of his money..

While I am sorry you are feeling the sadness you are feeling, the situation boils down to a few simple realities.
1. Unless the parents in a situation neglect or abuse their children, it is an illegitimate and ultimately ruinous use of our legal machinery for anyone (including grandparents) to force their will upon the parents.
2. If there really is a case that parents are abusive or negligent (versus making decisions other people merely dislike) then the light is green already — we have had adequate legal machinery for years to deal with this (CPS, etc). It should be used.
3. What we are discussing here is law, not Kindergarden sharing class. If a grandparent cannot get a parent to agree to some interaction but there is no case of abuse or neglect, then two questions really should be asked: First — Doesn’t the grandparent need to work on his or her human relations skills a little bit rather than go trotting off to the courts? Second — What kind of lesson does it teach children about families and government that their own future rights as parents can be easily thwarted?
4. Finally, ma’am, there’s the Golden Rule to think about. Assuming you never abused or neglected your children when you were raising them, how would you have felt about someone using a lawsuit against you to bring state power to bear on you to force you to do things differently than you thought best?